Category Archives for Airlines.
Last week I covered attempts by new Air France KLM CEO Ben Smith to unify the two carriers and end KLM’s independence.
However KLM has been making money. Air France has not been. And the voting rights over KLM are not even majority held by Air France KLM…
United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz took the stage at Gotham Hall in New York nearly 3 years ago. He was new on the job and looking to make a splash advancing the narrative that his airline was turning itself around, righting the ship.
It always seemed clear that United wouldn’t sustain their new inflight offering. Although in some ways I expected that there would be more progress actually rolling out the seats before it was cut back so far.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
As a passenger the Airbus A380 is a special experience. Takeoff rolls are incredibly smooth. While they can pack in passengers densely most operators have offered incredibly luxurious perks on the plane — in part because it can be so much more difficult to fill an aircraft with 600 or more passengers so the cost to use space ‘inefficiently’ is low. No US airline has operated one.
The Airbus board is meeting and – barring a last minute rabbit out of a hat – could announce the end of A380 production as soon as tomorrow. Airbus has been signaling the possible end of the A380 program since 2014.
University of Arkansas Law School professor Khaled Beydoun is claiming he was assaulted by a Delta Connection regional jet pilot after flying from Atlanta to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport on Delta flight DL5325 operated by Endeavor Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines.
The man was upgraded to first class based on his Platinum status but then downgraded to extra legroom coach. He says it’s because of his race. He then had words with the captain, whom he claims proceeded to ‘grab him by the neck’ and call the police on him.
American today could have been a real player in New York. Instead the world’s largest airline doesn’t seem to know what to do – or if they should do anything at all – with the nation’s most important air city.
They don’t serve New York JFK – Zurich. They don’t serve Frankfurt. Or Munich. Or Amsterdam. Or Tel Aviv. Or.. Denver. And they keep cutting markets.
News and notes from around the interweb: Is it snobby to bring your own wine on planes? I think when Delta serves $4 Andre in business class the answer is clearly no. I love trying new wines when I’m flying Singapore (especially) but also Qantas and other carriers in first class. When the wines are mediocre or poorly-paired I just won’t just drink. It’s always a bad idea to drink booze that a flight attendant does not serve to you. My seat opponent on a Dallas – Austin flight was once written up for bringing a to-go cup from the Admirals Club with wine in it — and refusing to give it up when called out by a flight attendant. Her reasoning: she didn’t want to waste the company’s resources. The Emir of Kuwait’s holding…
Carry on bags are a challenge for airlines that are trying to depart on time. That’s become far more the case over the past 11 years since US airlines added checked bag fees (so passengers try to carry on more) and they’ve resisted adding flights (capacity discipline) so that planes are increasingly full.
It takes time to store carry on bags on the plane, but perhaps more importantly when passengers discover at the last minute that there’s no overhead bin space left it takes time to gate check their bags.
Airlines have fought against ‘throwaway ticketing’ for years. A ticket on United Airlines to Chicago might be super expensive, but connecting through Chicago to Milwaukee may be cheap. So passengers might buy a ticket to Milwaukee and just get off in Chicago and not board their final connection.
This past fall though we learned that United Airlines was threatening passengers with sending them to collections for the fare the carrier believes that they lost. They’re threatening to trash their customers’ credit report with a dubious debt, since the passenger never agreed to pay a different fare in the first place.
Southwest Airlines doesn’t charge checked bag fees or change fees, and they’ve been profitable 46 years in a row. They don’t offer assigned seats, but generate $400 million a year in early boarding charges which let customers have a better shot at the seats they want. That’s an improvement for those customers compared to the airline’s base product.
While they continue to eschew bag and change fees, there’s talk of adding extras that they could charge… extra for.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
